RPG Design: Getting In Over Your Head

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 24, 2014

When I was a kid, I dreamed about a computer RPG that (in my dream) was completely awesome. Amusingly, although the end of the dream was more like a live-action adventure, the first half of the game in my dream was probably closer to something like the early Ultima games. Setting forth from the first […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Design: Exploration Rewards and Side Quests

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 23, 2014

My favorite Android game right now is Catan. That’s not saying much – I don’t play many Android games. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s also one of my favorite board games. Still. My favorite mode is one that comes with the Seafarers expansion called “Fog Islands.” It’s got all the fun stuff that comes with the […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Computer RPGS: The Wallflowers of the Steam Age? Part 2

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 11, 2014

In light of Computer RPGS: The Wallflowers of the Steam Age Part 1, are computer role-playing games worse off in the age of cheap, plentiful games than other genres, and if so, why? What inhibits people from starting them, and once they start, what makes them give up long before the game is complete? From the […]

Filed Under: Biz, Design, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Random Starts, and Playing Weaknesses

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 20, 2014

3D6. For those unfamiliar with dice-and-paper gaming, that means rolling three standard 6-sided dice, and adding their values together. Back in the old days of D&D, that was how your character was created. 3D6 created ability scores, from a range of 3-18, with 10 being defined as “average.” In the most hardcore tradition, you rolled […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

What Is Steampunk (to me)?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 19, 2014

I do not have a “steampunk” game in development right now (but I do have a few ideas I’d love to explore in the future). My short story, “Dots, Dashes, and Deceit” is being released in the anthology Terra Mechanica: A Steampunk Anthology in two weeks. I love the subgenre, and I thought I’d try […]

Filed Under: Books, Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

“Valence Electrons, First-Person Shooter”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 7, 2014

I vaguely remember high school chemistry. I remember working out the formulas, figuring out how you got molecules sharing electrons or whatnot. I guess I better remember the term “covalent bonds” rather than really understanding what it means. It’s been a while. So, sadly, I haven’t been much help with my daughter’s homework for that class. […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Texting the Player

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 5, 2014

I’ve been a fan of text in games since… well, since I discovered the original Colossal Cave Adventure. I’ve actually mourned the slow demise of text in games, although I admit I am sometimes the one who will skip it. I blame lousy writing. Peter Angstadt has some valuable bits of advice for encouraging players […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Game Design, Research, and Mortality

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 25, 2014

A weird, personal note today. Several years ago, I did a great deal of research for a game I still want to do someday. I backed off on it because I realized I didn’t have the chops yet to pull it off. So I put it on the shelf for a while. I haven’t given […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: Read the First Comment

I Wanna Hold Your Hand: Thoughts on Ultima 7

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 3, 2014

Since it’s now for sale again after nearly twenty years via GOG.COM, when a friend told me he had never played Ultima 7, I made a gift of it to him. I was kinda excited to hear what he thought of it, but I was not immune to one noteworthy fear: What if he didn’t […]

Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Game Dev Quote of the Week: Interesting Decisions

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 14, 2014

This game design quote comes from Bruce Shelly, a designer of Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, and Age of Empires fame, from the way-back machine of 2001… and, as it is the season, it’s from GDC. “Presenting the player with interesting and well-paced decisions is the rocket science of game design. Players have fun when they are […]

Filed Under: Design, Quote of the Week - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Game Design Lessons from Ken Rolston

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 26, 2014

Ken Rolston has quite a list of game design credentials, from working on two of the Elder Scrolls games, to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (which I hear is a good game, in spite of being tainted by its history), to experience working in the dice-and-paper RPG industry. His office-mate Alexander Horn from the 38 Studios […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Game Design: What Makes Exploration Fun?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 5, 2014

I’m trying to come up with some kind of “unified field theory” about exploration in games (particularly, but not exclusively, for RPGs). Some games are really good at it – from the early days of Elite and Frontier, to the sandbox play of the Grand Theft Auto series, to Bethesda’s exploration-centric role-playing games. particularly as […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 18 Comments to Read

The Game Design Rough Sketch

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 30, 2013

I heard a joke the other day: “Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning.” It’s pretty true, although for certain familiar tasks for veteran programmers, the planning can take a lot more time than just jumping into code. I think in code. But of course, that’s the kind of thing that gets me […]

Filed Under: Design, Production - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

RPG Design: Declaring Victory. A lot.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 17, 2013

I’ve been doing a little bit of course-tuning of the combat system for Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath, which is to be expected as I’ve radically changed some significant aspects from … well, anything I’ve played before. The spell system, which is quite possibly the most complicated spell system “under the hood” ever […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Game Dev Quote of the Week: Lee Perry

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 12, 2013

This week’s quote of the week comes from Lee Parry, formerly a lead designer at Epic (and now an indie): “If there’s one single thing I would drive into any developer’s head if I could, it would be the importance of great player feedback.  When I talk about feedback, I mean the classic loop between […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

RPG Design: The Forgettable Fight

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 10, 2013

Maybe it was the link to the Richard Garriott quote last week, or the Matt Chat interviews with Guido Henkel, or… more likely… my current coding and rebalancing of Frayed Knights combat, but I’ve been thinking about combat in RPGs a bit more lately, and how it has changed between the old classics and modern […]

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 15 Comments to Read



« previous top next »